Saturday, July 16, 2016

Have I Become an Ambassador?

No, but it seems some editorial staffer of O Globo has read Julio Severo
too much

By Julio Severo

Perusing Brazilian news in O Globo, a major secular news site
in Brazil owned by the powerful conglomerate Globo, I was surprised to see… my
name as an ambassador!

In the disorder in Turkey after a failed coup attempt, trapped
Brazilian parliamentarians in Turkey were assisted by an “Ambassador Julio
Severo,” as reported by O Globo here.

Yet, according
to the Brazilian Foreign Ministry, the name of the Brazilian ambassador in
Turkey is Antonio Luis Espinola Salgado.

How then did an “Ambassador Julio Severo” manage to appear in
a major Brazilian report on Brazilians and their ambassador in Turkey? I do not
know.

I googled it in Portuguese, and I have found no “Ambassador
Julio Severo” (in Portuguese is “embaixador Julio Severo”).

Perhaps, while preparing his report, the Globo editorial
staffer was reading my blog and without noticing introduced my name. Usually, “Julio”
in Portuguese is written in an accented way: “Júlio.” The non-accented form is
less common, and the report brings the less common form, which I use.

While I am perusing O Globo, it seems that O Globo is perusing
my blog!

By reading my blog too much, the distracted Globo could, also accidentally,
eventually introduce my name in a report about the U.S. or the Brazilian
presidency! So from “ambassador” to “president”?

I am not unfamiliar to Globo. In the 2007 visit of U.S. President
George W. Bush to Brazil, Globo contacted me for an interview, because,
according to its journalist, I was one of the few Brazilians supportive of
Bush. My support was based on pro-life and pro-family values. The Globo report,
headlined “As a Minority, Admirers Defend Bush in Brazil,” is here.